Beyond the Walls: The Social Reintegration of Prisoners Through the Dialogic Reading of Classic Universal Literature in Prison

• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Tinka Schubert,Pilar Alvarez,Rocío García-Carrión,Lidia Puigvert,Cristina Pulido
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16672864
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X16672864

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(4) 1043 –1061

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16672864

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Article

Beyond the Walls: The Social

Reintegration of Prisoners

Through the Dialogic Reading

of Classic Universal Literature

in Prison

Pilar Alvarez1, Rocío García-Carrión2, Lidia Puigvert3,4,

Cristina Pulido3, and Tinka Schubert1

Abstract

This study analyzed whether it was possible to successfully transfer an experience

of dialogic literary gatherings (DLGs) developed in a prison in the Basque Country

(Spain), which was found to enhance the participants’ readiness to return to their

communities. A case study was conducted in a different prison in Catalonia that

comprised interviews and focus groups with a group of female prisoners and

volunteers involved in the DLG. The communicative analysis conducted showed that

the replication of the DLG allowed the participants to discuss and reflect on their

biographies and their expected pathways upon release, thus opening possibilities for

personal and social change. The results show that participants perceived the DLG as

a helpful resource for social reintegration and suggest that DLGs can be transferred

to different correctional institutions.

Keywords

social reintegration, prisoners, inclusion, dialogic literary gathering

1Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Seville, Spain

2University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain

3University of Barcelona, Spain

4Cambridge University, UK

Corresponding Author:

Pilar Alvarez, Department of Communication and Education, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, C/ Energia

Solar 1, 41014 Seville, Spain.

Email: palvarez@uloyola.es

672864IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X16672864International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyAlvarez et al.

research-article2016

1044 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62(4)

Before participating in the literary gathering, I did not believe in myself. Since the

gathering, I am more self-confident, I believe more in my possibilities because, from the

outside, everybody has prejudices about us, and then you think that you are not able to do

anything. Through reading these classics, listening to my fellow inmates and seeing what

we are able to do, that they have respect for you, believe in you . . . And now in July, I’ll

probably be released on parole, and I want to register myself to get access to university

through adult education. I would like to be a social worker and work in prisons to help

other inmates.

—Iona (female inmate participant in dialogic literary gathering [DLG])

Participation in DLGs, an education program where inmates read universal classic

literature, provided this particular inmate with the capacity to realize her dreams of

becoming a social worker. The stigma of having been in prison had negatively dimin-

ished her self-esteem, and she underestimated her personal potential to return to soci-

ety. She explains how participating in DLGs has had a direct effect on her realization

that she is able to decide on her own biography. Iona is well aware of the pressures that

she will face outside prison, but through the DLG, she has imagined another possible

future for herself that involves moving away from relapse.

Iona’s testimony is not an isolated case but is common among all inmates who are

participating in DLGs in Spanish prisons. First, we conducted a case study in a peni-

tentiary institution in the Basque Country. We demonstrated that the inmates who had

participated in the DLG increased their possibility of social reintegration and redi-

rected their lives once their imprisonment was over (Flecha, Garcia, & Gomez, 2013).

In this prior study, a longitudinal analysis was performed, and interviews were con-

ducted with people who had already served their prison sentence and had been socially

integrated from 2 to 6 years after at the time of the interview. The most relevant con-

tribution of this first case study is the analysis of how participation in DLGs had

affected the participants’ later process of social reintegration. Thus, the main findings

of the case study conducted in the Basque Country show that DLGs contributed to the

promotion of the further social integration of prisoners. Drawing on this prior study

and with the aim of determining whether the results obtained in the DLG in a prison in

the Basque Country were an isolated case or are transferable to other penitentiary

contexts, the present case study was designed in a prison located in a different social

context with different professional teams, organizational structures, and inmates.

Specifically, we have conducted communicative life stories and a focus group with

female inmates participating in the DLG, in addition to in-depth interviews with vol-

unteers who were involved in the development of the program. In addition, in the first

case of the penitentiary institution in the Basque Country, the participants were men,

whereas in the second case study in Catalonia, they were women. The results obtained

in the case study conducted in Catalonia suggest that DLGs can be replicated; the

evidence indicates that the female prisoners perceived that their participation in DLGs

is also contributing to preparing them for and to facilitating their process of social

reintegration.